WK3 Decision Support Systems for Business Intelligence CH6

Ill

ISSUES OF DESIGN

Decision Support Systems for Business Intelligence

by Vicki L. Sauter

6

INTERNATIONAL DECISION

SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Many executives are choosing

to

internationalize operations to avail the corporation of larger

and more fruitful markets, competition among labor forces, and economical location and

distribution incentives. With internationalization comes geographical dispersion, increased

industrial and market competition, and increased access to labor pools and natural resources.

However, it also brings variations in the technical, legal, economic, and cultural forces

affecting the operations and decision making of the enterprise, the impact of which is

affected by the form of internationalization.

Transnational corporations can take on a variety of forms. For example, it is possible

that offices in the various countries produce different products and are essentially separate.

On the other hand, it is possible that the products are manufactured or created in one

country and marketed in another. Or there can be some combination of the two, such as

what Dyment (1987, p. 22) described:

The global corporation may have

a

product that was designed in

a

European country, with

components manufactured

in

Taiwan and

Korea.

It

may be

assembled

in

Canada

and

sold

as

a standard model in Brazil, and as a model fully loaded with options, in the United States.

Transfer pricing of the components and assembled product may be determined with an

eye to minimizing tax legality. Freight and insurance may be contracted for relet through a

Swiss

subsidiary,

which earns a

profit subject

only to

cantonal

taxes.

The principal

financing

may be provided from the Eurodollar market based in London. Add the complexities of

having the transactions in different countries, with foreign exchange hedges contract gains

and losses

that sometimes offset

trading

losses

or

gains,

and one has a

marvelously complex

management control problem.

Decision Support Systems for Business Intelligence

by Vicki L. Sauter

279

280

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Another form of internationalization is described by Sankar and Prabhakar (1992, p. 251).

This example involves not the production process but rather the sharing of data.

Consider the development of a Decision Support System that could support stock trans-

actions for transnational brokerages with offices in New York, Rome and Frankfurt. Such

a DSS must monitor the activity on multiple exchanges and in multiple markets to help

the analyst determine what stocks to trade, when to trade them, and how to trade them. If

the stock broker in New York wants to initiate a particular stock transaction, and if that

company is listed on multiple exchanges, he or she needs to decide trading on which ex-

change is most profitable. If for

example,

the decision is made to trade on the Rome Stock

Exchange, the transaction is sent to a front end processor (FEP) in New York, which then

transmits it to Rome using a private line. The Rome office sends a confirmation message

to New York and sends a duplicate copy of

the

transaction to the head office. Further, the

database used by brokers at all offices needs to be updated immediately so that models

tracking trades and prices will be accurate. Clearly the coordination among these systems,

while still providing decision support, is challenging.

Decision support systems have the potential for great assistance for multinational de-

cision making because technical variability, legal innuendos, cultural differences, and eco-

nomic pressures and their coordination exacerbate the turmoil associated with the poorly

defined choice processes generally supported by

DSS.

1

However, if not implemented prop-

erly, DSS can add to the problems of transnational decision making. In order to exploit the

benefits, designers need to be sensitive to a wider variety of issues and problems than those

considered in the design of domestic systems.

For example, there is reason to believe that there would be differences in preferences

for user interface options for transnational systems. Understanding the preferences and

their implications is crucial. Since the user interface is the only way one can interact with

the computer, its acceptance by users limits the usefulness of the system as a whole.

The user interface can communicate the importance of information and modeling

within a system. Different

colors,

size of representation (and relative size of representation),

spatiality, and contrast provide the "nonverbal cues" for the user interface. Even the way in

which one moves from screen to screen or accesses information carries some significance.

That

is,

the user interface can convey what is important

to

the organization, how the "power"

in the organization is controlled, or the corporate norms and expectations.

Consider the screen shown in Figure

6.1.

In this screen, the financial implication of a

proposed transnational corporate change

to the United States

is emphasized. The message

is carried in two ways. First, the implications for the United States are the only ones that

default as open to the screen. Users of the system are, in a sense, forced to at least see

them (if not use them). However, the implication is that information regarding all other

countries is "optional" to the decision because the user needs to take explicit action to

cause those results to appear on the screen. The second way in which the United States is

emphasized is through the size of the windows. Even after one has opened the windows

for other countries, they are considerably smaller than the window containing the U.S.

1

A team at the

University of California

at Irvine's Center

for

Research on

Information Technology and

Organizations studied

the role

of information technology

in the

economies of

11

Asia-Pacific nations.

In countries where the investment in information technology exceeded other investments, such as

plants and equipment, productivity was the highest. "This means IT investment is more productive

than other

investments,"

says one researcher.

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

281

Figure 6.1. User interface implications.

financial data, hence conveying that the non-U.S. data are less important. A similar effect

could have been obtained by displaying financial data

only

in U.S. dollars and not in local

currencies. The implication of

these

differences is, of

course,

only a problem if the message

they convey is

unintended.

A second problem also is illustrated in Figure

6.1.

In this case, instead of emphasizing

a specific country, the size and default open options suggest the relative importance of

particular analyses. As in the previous example, this screen design suggests that financial

implications are the most crucial, whereas all other analyses are clearly secondary. This

suggestion of the importance of particular steps in a typical analysis is also conveyed

in Figure 5.31. In that screen, the system provides explicit encouragement for the user

to attempt to change values and rerun the simulation. The availability of the option is

making a statement about

the

importance of sensitivity analyses; the subtle recommendation

would not be apparent without those automatic rerun buttons. This apparent support for

particular options can present a problem for a transnational DSS when there are clear

cultural differences in the modeling preferences across the cultures. Such differences will

be discussed in later sections of this chapter.

Better user interfaces would have given non-U.S. countries greater representation on

the screen. Perhaps no analyses would be open as a default, but rather the world as a whole

is shown, and users can click on the country—or countries—of interest. Similarly, it would

send less of a message if users needed to actually request all options.

The relative sizing and location of objects on the screen are not the only aspects needing

attention in a transnational DSS. Since the user interface may be the basis for interaction

with other managers using the system, users become totally dependent on this interface for

prompts that would otherwise come from "nonverbal cues" and other tempering cues in

communication. Hence, words lose their intonation and the user becomes totally dependent

upon symbols and icons to convey more information. These new ways of affecting patterns

282

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

of communication are fine as long as everyone agrees to the meaning of the various cues.

Problems occur, however, if there is a difference between the "codes" meant by the creators

of the cues and the codes used by the consumers of the cues.

In addition, the user interface may have a variety of problems associated with the use

of multiple languages. Many cultures, such as the French, are adamant about maintain-

ing their language as an active part of their culture, not just some quaint aspect of the

small towns in the country. Hence, if one of the nations involved with the system is a

country such as France,

2

providing a single-language transnational DSS may be impossi-

ble;

translation of files, commands, databases, and so on, may be necessary. Translations

can be tricky. Not only do the words need to be translated, but also the

meaning

of the

words

as a whole.

For example, the Japanese interpret the word "pragmatic" to mean

"tool user." Clearly, the meaning conveyed by referring to someone as "pragmatic" and

that associated with "tool user" are quite different. Without an understanding of the lan-

guage

and

the culture, the meaning of information used for decision making might be

lost. As a result, translations can be time consuming and people consuming. While there

are automated translators, they cannot be relied upon in such an unstructured setting;

they rarely reflect the nuances associated with data. For example, consider the computer-

generated translation shown in the box. Even without having the original Italian version, it

is clear that the

meaning

of the communication has been lost through the translation of the

words.

3

2

Even

a

system shared with Canada,

a

country quite similar

to the

United

States,

might require

a DSS

to

employ multiple languages, depending upon its application. Since the French-speaking population

in Canada is so numerous (especially in the Quebec province), Canadian law requires the use of

both English and French in many circumstances. For

example,

even candy wrappers in Canada must

provide all information, including the ingredients and nutritional information, in both English and

French.

3

Much work on language translation is in progress and some is much better than others. Even with

the best of

the

software, though, one

risks

losing nuances in the meaning of

words.

Design Insights

The Toubon Law

In France the use of French is required by law in commercial and workplace communications.

In 2006, GE Healthcare

, a French subsidiar

y of a U.S. company, was fined €500,000 plus an

ongoing fine of €20,000 per day for providing software and related technical documentation lo its

employees in the English language only. The Toubon Law (the full name of which is Law 94-665

of August 4, 1994, relating to usage of the French language) requires French to be used in official

government publications, in all advertisements, in all workplaces, in commercial contracts, in

some other commercial communication contexts, in all government-financed schools, and some

other contexts, including broadcasted programs. The Civil Court of Versailles followed a strict

interpretation of the Labor Code and on January

11,

2005, ordered GE Healthcare to immediately

provide its employees with (i) a French translation of its software and (ii) a French translation of

documents relating to employee training, safety, and health instructions and training manuals. In

addition, the court ordered the company to have documents relating to products already on the

market translated into French by June

1,

2005, with a daily penalty for noncompliance of €20,000

per document.

The Toubon Law also allows for the fine of individuals caught adulteratin

g the French

language with commercial or official English,

including computer terms.

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

283

Even when the text is translated properly, its meaningfulness can be affected by the

technology associated with data transmission if the language requires special characters.

Often, if messages are not sent using an appropriate gateway, encodings become damaged

or changed, and hence the message becomes garbled. Some transnetwork software strips

off control characters, making the reading of text impossible. So, for example, rather than

receiving Japanese characters, one might simply receive the following on the screen:

$NJ8>0$NNC$G!"$=$l$OEnglish$B$NJ8>0$91#J 

The following was posted on an electronic discussion group dedicated to communicatio

n regarding

historical issues, H-NET.

It

is

included

here

to help the reader understand the problems associated

with translation for transnational DSS.

Note from H-NET: Professor Andreucci, the moderator of H-ITALY, is fluent in Italian and

English. H-NET asked him to review one of the new automatic language translation programs.

His review appeared in Italian on H-ITALY. What follows is the automatic machine translation

into English of his review. It gives a strikingly clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of

the program.

From: Franco Andreucci <fran&commat;vmxnucc.cnr,it

>

Subject: Italian Assistant Software—Automatic translation of my review

This is the automatic translation—don

e by the Italian Assistant (MicroTac Software)—of the

text I posted last week, I didn't intervenc in any word or phrase. Unfortunately, also the texts

intentionally written in italian in order to be automatically translated as examples in my review

are translated. For instance, if you don't control the original Italian text, you'll miss the meaning

of the sentence where

L<

leader

1

' is translated with "leader". My criticism was that 'leader' is

translated with "duce," Some words arc not translated because the accents are missing, In this

case,

the responsibility is totally mine.

"Babele, _

\W

| the Mr. confuse

d the tongue of all the earth'' (Genesis, 11) |by] FRANCO

ANDREUCCI

The old man dreams of returning to speak the universa

l tongue of the Genesis and of

annul the chastisemen

t of Babele, hard [e'] to die. In the XIX century he engages the character

of the artful idiom and then, in our century, that of the automatic translator. Tied hope a time

to the legends of the [positivismo], contradicted from the bankruptcy of the introduction of

the [esperanto], she becomes alive anchor in a fascinating and modern way from the protection

of the computer

. Studied in the Soviet Union in the years '30 and then, after the Second world war,

in the United States, the [possibilita*] of the automatic tied translation to the action of

a

computer

has done in the last years of the footstep

s from giant. If you/he/shc/it arc thought that the dimen-

sion of an electronic dictionary in line [e*] passed from the 250 words of the 1954 to the actual

[eentinaia

j of [migliaiaj, we one

[puo'

j make account that at least a problem |e'J having faced in

acceptabl

e way.

Borne from the numerous experiences scientific [svoltesi] in the linguisti

c field for the auto-

matic translation, the idea has found a recent commercial realization in the programs ^Language

Assistant Series'

η

of the MicroTac Software. The programs—that they arc called Italian Assistant,

German Assistant, French Assistant, Spanish Assistant and they cost $99,95 each—they foresee

the translation in the two senses between the English from a part and the Italian, the French, the

German and the Spanish from the other. They represent an enormous footstep in ahead (respect

to the by now "Old" dictionaries electronic [tascabili] or to the automatic translators of phrases)

for their [elasticita'l and their [capacita'] of answer complex challenges. This critique concerns

the Italian part of the program in his release for Windows entirely (MicroTac Software Assistant

Windows

[for],

LverJ.

1.00a).

284

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

To be able to salvage the message, the user needs to know how to replace the special

characters either manually or with special software tools. Hence, the designers of the

transnational DSS need to concern themselves with the way in which data are retrieved

from corporate databases and transmitted to all users. In addition, designers need to be

concerned about the way in which data from external databases, such as network news

services, are retrieved and transmitted.

Translations can also affect the user interface in terms of its appearance. One primary

problem is the orientation of the text. For example, in the United States, most users feel

comfortable with menus that appear at the top of a screen that orient from left to right

because that is the way we read. Most standard menuing systems in the United States use

such an orientation, and it has been very popular. However, it is common to use a vertical

orientation for text in Japan, causing difficulties for software companies trying to make

their products more user friendly. It is necessary not only to translate the words in the

menus and help screens but also to change the orientation of the entire screen to a vertical

framework (associated with their reading and writing conventions).

In addition, many languages are considerably more verbose than English. Or, if the

language requires special characters, they may assume more space than standard Roman

characters. For example, since Chinese and Japanese characters assume twice the width of

a standard Roman character, the standard screen holds only 40 Japanese characters (rather

than the standard 80 Roman characters). Hence, translation of elementary aspects of the

system design, including prompts and labels, may require an entire screen redesign in order

to accommodate the translated terms. For example, consider Figure 6.2, which provides a

screen design for a dashboard developed in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. Notice

how the screen needed to be reengineered to accommodate the vertical orientation of the

Japanese, the right-to-left orientation of the Arabic, and the range of special characters

needed for all three.

Design Insights

The Arabic Languag

e

'■

Efforts to develop Arabic DSS have been plagued with problems of how to search for infor-

;

mation in a database. Standard Arabia which is used consistently in written language, has 29

letters, some of which can be adjusted with five different diacritics. In addition, the alphabet

consists of several sets of homophones, a rich morphology, and standardized spelling of Arabic

names is error

prone

>

Finally, there are almost 20 encodings currently in use for Arabic. Thus,

in order to create accurate queries of the database in a

DSS,

there needs to be some preprocess-

ing of the input data. Some have experimented with eliminating the diacritics. Otair, Al-Sardi,

and Al-Gialain (2008), however, have developed a more promising intermediary product that

attempts to understand the request before transforming them into SQL queries. Their approach

processes the words using a stem-based morphological analysis. The tool, called the Arabic

Query Analyzer (which is DMBS and application independent), has been fully implemented and

has shown tangible performance metrics. A related effort by El-Haj and Hammo (2008) built

a query-oriented text summarization system to respond to natural language queries in Arabic*

Such a system could help decision makers understand the range of documents, both internal

and on the Internet, that might be of help in a choice context. This too has shown promising

results.

I I

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

285

Even when the users can select one language for the system, they may use it quite

differently. Researchers in the area of communication long have known that cultures com-

municate distinctively.

4

Berger (1984, p. 43) notes that "even when they speak the same

language, there are problems as a result of differences in education, class, level and cultural

backgrounds." Hence, even though the individuals themselves

are

providing the translations,

they may miss the meaning of information, especially if it contains slang or colloquialisms.

For example, the British use the term

billion

to mean what Americans call

trillion.

That

is,

the British use

thousand million

when referring to what Americans call a billion and

thus a billion is not encountered until one increases another order of magnitude (hence,

the American's

trillion).

If one were not careful when translating the American version of

the English language into the British version of the English language, one might miss the

significant implications of size difference.

4

"The difference between the

almost

right

word and the

right

word is really a large matter—'tis the

difference between the lightening bug and the lightening" (Mark

Twain,

U. S. author).

Design Insights

The Japanese Language

Japanese text requires special attention in the design of DSS because of the complexity of the

language. Some of the issues which contribut

e to the difficulty for a transnational DSS are

highlighted below. In Japanese, one cannot assume that one byte is equivalen

t to one character,

because Japanese characters generally require multiple bytes for representation. The Japanese

character set contains over 10,000 characters. The Japanese writing system is a mixture of four

different writing systems; Roman, Hiragana, Katakana, and KanjL

■ Roman characters correspond to the 52 characters (including both uppercase and lower-

case) of the English language. In addition, there are Roman characters associated with the

10 numerials. Japanese use the Roman characters primarily in the construction of tables

and in the creation of acronyms.

* Hiragana characters are ones that represent sounds, such as syllables. Generally, these

characters are used to create suffixes for some words or to write native Japanese words.

The Hiragana characters appear to have a calligraphic look. For example, the character

Ϊ

represents the sound made by the letters

i(

ma" whereas the character

=

represents the

sound made by the combination of letters "mi.

71

* Katakana characters represent a phonetic alphabet as well However, they are used to

represent words of foreign origin, such as bread, -

Prj

(pronounced "pan

1

'), which was

derived from the Portuguese word for bread,

pdo

(pronounced

4t

pown

1i

). In addition

, they

are used for emphasis, similar to the way we use italics in English. The Katakana characters

have a squared, rigid look in compariso

n to the Hiragan

a characters. For example, the

character

?

represents the sound made by the combination of "ma" while the character

f

represents the sound made by the combination of letters "ku."

* Kanji characters were borrowed from the Chinese over 1500 years ago. There are tens

of thousands of these characters in use by the Japanese. These characters represent spe-

cific words or combinations of words. For example,

*

when used alone indicates a tree,

while two of the character, **, indicates woods and three of the character, ***, means a

forest,

There is no recognized character set for Japanese similar to ASCII for English. Nor is there a

universally recognized encoding method for Japanese.

286

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

(a)

Figure 6.2. Language effects on screen design. The same information is provided in (a) English,

(b) Chinese, (c) Arabic, and (d) Japanese.

Design Insigh

nexpected Consequence

s of Technology Decisions

The move to computerization in cullures with complex alphabets can introduce unwanted impacts

on society. Consider the Chinese language, which has roughly 55,000 characters, although only

3500 are in everyday use. When the Public Security Bureau modernized its operations, managers,

not surprisi

ngly,

decided that it would be easier

to

track i ts citizens if information was computerized

rather than handwritten. System designers compromised between the number of characters in ev-

eryday use and the census of

all

characters by allowing the system to use 32,352 unique characters,

While this decision did not have much impact on the operation of the system, or most of the

information stored in the system, it did have a major impact on the recording of people's names.

Family names were not

a

problem since only 100 surnames cover 85%

of

China's

1.3

billion

citizens. (By comparison,

it

takes 70,000 surnames

to

cover 90%

of

Americans.) As

a

result,

many Chinese parents look to classical Chinese to find

a

first name for their children, in part to

find

a

pleasing name and

in

part

to

help the child stand out

in

society. Clearly, these classical

names cannot be spelled using the 32,352 characters in the Public Security Bureau's system,

Government officials have told individuals with these unique names that they musi change

their name so they can be listed in the database. Further, they are working on a list of "approved

1

'

characters from which future parents must select children's names.

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

287

(b)

Figure 6.2.

(Continued)

Language effects on screen design.

Translation into Chinese by Aihua Yan.

Translation also needs to be aware of

how

different cultures adopt the context informa-

tion that surrounds the communication. Many cultures of Asia, Latin America, Africa, and

the Middle East are high-context

cultures.

In those cultures, people are highly influenced by

the context when interpreting the meaning of communication. So, what is meant depends

on the environment in which something is said or written. By contrast, cultures of North

America and Australia place more emphasis on what is said to determine meaning than the

context in which it is said.

Similarly, different languages and cultures have different ways of representing dates,

currency, and other units of measurement. For example,

3/1/10

means March 1, 2010,

in the United States, but January 3, 2010, in most of Europe. Many companies in Japan

continue to use the Japanese Era Name for years rather than the Common Era designation.

So,

rather than regarding the year as 2010, they would regard it as Heisei 22 (or 22 years of

the reign of

the

current emperor). Further, some areas of Eastern Asia cling to the "Chinese

calendar," which is a blend of the lunar and solar calendars. Similarly, Iran, Afghanistan,

and related societies use the Solar Hejri calendar, so the year 2010 would be 1388 or 1389

depending on the time of year (the calendar year begins about March 21 of the Gregorian

calendar).

288

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

(C)

Figure 6.2.

(Continued)

Language effects on screen design.

Translation into Arabic by Michael Martinich-Sauter.

Languages have different rules for pronunciation and therefore meanings which need

to be accommodated. For example, a character with an umlaut will have different impacts

in Finnish than in German, even though they may look the same to an English audience.

Finally, different languages and different cultures treat the concept of uppercase and

lowercase characters differently. For example, the Hebrew language uses lowercase letters

only

when the text is handwritten and uppercase letters only when the text is printed. In

this case, the system designer using a combination of uppercase and lowercase characters

in English to convey information would not be able to have the same message sent on the

Arabic screen.

Icons can also be a source of confusion when used transnationally because they have

quite different interpretations. Those shown in Figure 6.3 are common icons that might be

used to give quick visual cues on a dashboard to help the decision maker know whether

conditions are improving or not. Clearly, given the range of interpretations of those icons

across the world, it would not be prudent to use them in a system that would be used

transnationally. In fact, given the internationalization of the employees of most companies,

even if they are solely located in a given country, such icons might not convey the intended

purpose.

INFORMATION AVAILABILITY STANDARDS

289

(d)

Figure 6.2.

(Continued)

Language effects on screen design.

Translation into Japanese by Mihiro Sasaki.

There

is

every reason

to

believe that other

less

obvious problems of user interface would

be different among cultures as well. Unfortunately, if the user interface is unacceptable to

users,

they will not use the DSS. Hence, it has an important and direct influence on

the ability of the user to realize the full potential of the system. The impact of culture

upon the database management system and the model management system in transnational

DSS is even less intuitive. The remainder of this chapter will highlight some of the legal,

cultural, and economic issues that need to be addressed when defining DSS for transnational

corporations.

INFORMATION AVAILABILITY STANDARDS

One of the assumptions regarding transnational DSS is that the company can, in fact, share

the desired information in all relevant

venues.

This includes the ability to collect information

on a microlevel and to assemble information selectively, to correlate information or in any

way create new information from the original data, and to share that information across

borders. This implies that the cultures and the laws of the countries are consistent on the

view of information, its privacy, and its shareability. In addition, the goal implies that the

manner in which those views of privacy and shareability are

enforced

is consistent among

the venues. This often is related to how they approach the relative openness of their borders,

investment, and business and commercial innovations—and hence can be quite different,

290

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Figure 6.3. Gestures and their interpretation cross culturally.

even between two cultures which appear to share a similar "social" culture, such as the

United States and Canada.

Data Privacy

Data privacy addresses the question of what information can be accumulated about individ-

uals,

corporations, or enterprises and how that information can be processed and shared. In

the United States, we have high expectations for privacy and citizens

believe

their privacy

is quite protected. After all, the Fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution states:

The

right

of

people

to be secure in their

persons,

houses, papers and effects against unrea-

sonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon

probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to

be searched and the person or things to be seized.

Further, the 1965 landmark Supreme Court case

Griswold

v.

Connecticut

upheld an indi-

vidual's right to privacy, citing the Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or

disparage others retained by the people.

INFORMATION AVAILABILITY STANDARDS

291

In 1967, a Panel on Privacy and Behavioral Research reporting to the Office of Science and

Technology stated (Privacy and Behavioral Research, 1967, p. 8):

The right to privacy is the right of the individual to decide for himself

how

much he will

share with others his thoughts, his feelings and the facts of his personal life... Actually

what is private varies from day to day and setting to setting.

In other words, we generally believe in the protection of the right to privacy of individual,

personal information. Not all countries share this perception of privacy. For example,

totalitarian governments are known for neglecting the rights of citizens' privacy.

However, even in America, where citizens believe their privacy is protected, enforce-

ment of privacy regulations is not extensive. Very few states provide any strength or

enforcement to that right. In 1977, the Federal Privacy Protection Study Commission

found an imbalance between the rights of individuals and those of record keeping or-

ganizations. Specifically it suggested a variance between the need for information and

the requests for disclosure. In particular, it suggests that many recordkeeping organiza-

tions are intrusive to the individual and that the extent and nature of recordkeeping need

better delineation, and enforceable expectations of confidentiality by law or statute need

establishment.

As a result, Congress passed The Computer Security Act of 1987, which attempts

to define that information in need of protection. It defines "sensitive information" as

that which, if lost, misused, accessed, or modified without authorization, could adversely

affect the privacy of individuals and be a violation of the Privacy Act. However, each

citizen differs with regard to precisely

what

it considers sensitive under that definition.

Further, while mandated to require "informed consent" prior to data collection, disclosure

is permitted

without

consent to those within an agency who have a "need for the record

in the performance of their duties" or to agencies in connection with "routine uses" for

purposes "compatible with the purposes for which it was collected."

While this sounds as if no one can get access to data without individuals knowing

about it, the reality is far different. First, these statements only apply to data collected by

governmental agencies and some specified private agencies such as banks. Second, few

individuals read or understand the "informed consent" clause provided on most application

forms.

Even fewer individuals would understand how far the consent actually applies. In

reality, except in specific instances such as health records, in the United States, whoever

collects and digitalizes data has the right to store and use it—regardless of whether the

individual knows the data were collected or gave permission for them to be collected. If

the data are incorrectly attributed or keyed or are "out of context," it is the responsibility of

the individual to correct his or her personal data. The introduction of the Patriot Act in 2001

gave increasing rights to the government to use whatever information they could collect.

Further, Internet Sites, such as Facebook, and Internet-based tools, such as those provided

by Google have made access to one's data even less Secure.

In a recent Harris-Equifax Poll:

• Seventy-six percent of Americans believe they have lost all control over

how

personal

information about them is circulated.

• Eighty-nine percent believe that computers have made it easier for someone to

improperly obtain personal and confidential information on them.

292

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

• Sixty-eight percent believe that computers represent

a

threat

to

their personal privacy.

• Sixty-six percent believe there are not adequate safeguards to protect the privacy of

personal information stored in computers.

• Sixty-seven percent believe that if privacy is to be preserved, the use of computers

must be restricted.

"Informed consent" also implies the individual enters into the agreement freely and

openly. However, the reality is that the failure to provide this consent results in not getting

licenses, credit, or other privileges in society. In other words, you must provide it or

you will not have full rights. And if the data are collected by most private enterprises,

it can be released or sold to other organizations unless specific statements prohibiting it

are signed.

Once collected, the data may be kept in a database

forever.

This is particularly prob-

lematic if an error is originally entered and if the customer has no way of knowing that the

error was entered. Furthermore, the statutes in the United States put the responsibility for

examining the data to ensure its accuracy on the

consumer,

not on the group collecting the

data. A small percentage of individuals understand the number of ways errors occur in the

transcription of data, the possibility for erroneously merging data, or the wide possibility

of errors in the data processing capabilities. Hence, few individuals check those records to

which they have access, and so errors can multiply.

Other cultures take a much stronger stance on the protection of citizens' rights to

privacy. For example, in Canada, data collection companies must publish their policies,

such as those shown regarding Equifax. Further, the 2001 Personal Information Protection

and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) gives individuals the right to:

• Understand the reasons organizations collect, use, or disclose personal information

• Expect organizations to collect, use, or disclose personal information in a reasonable

and appropriate way

• Understand who in the organization is responsible for protecting individuals' per-

sonal information

• Expect organizations to protect the personal information in a reasonable and security

way

• Expect the personal information held by the organizations to be accurate, complete,

and up to date

• Have access to their personal information and ask for any corrections or have the

right to complain to the organizations

The PIPEDA requires organizations to:

• Obtain consent before they collect, use, and disclose any personal information

• Collect personal information in a reasonable, appropriate, and lawful way

• Establish personal information policies that are clear, reasonable, and ready

to

protect

individuals *

person information

INFORMATION AVAILABILITY STANDARDS 293

Equifax prides itself on being a trusted steward of personal information and is committed to

protecting the privary of all personal information under its control. We arc publishing this Privacy

Policy to provide a comprehensive overview of our practices and procedures relating to the

protection of personal information as well as its use, collection and disclosure.

Many provinces have laws that specifically protect consumer credit information. The laws

vary from one jurisdiction to the next, but most are similar in their intent. The federal government

has also enacted the Personal Information Protectio

n and Electronic Documents Act, which

governs the protection of personal information and electronic data, Some provinces have also

adopted local privacy legislation, To ensure consistent service to consumers across Canada,

Equifax has based this Privacy Policy on the federal law.

Equifax Statement of Consumer Rights

Equifax believes that Canadians have the following fundamental rights:

* The right to know what information has been collected, stored and reported about them.

* The right to be able to review the information reported about them in a reasonable time,

in a format that is understandable

» and with an ability to challenge and correct inaccurate

information.

• The right to expect that the information about them that is collected or stored will not be

used for any purpose

s other than those permitte

d by law,

• The right to have information about them safeguarded using secure storage, confidential

handling within the organization, and secure transmittal to authorized and legitimate users.

• The right to be treated with respect and fairness when information about them is beign

used.

* The right to privacy consistent with the requests they make of business.

• The right to expect levels of accuracy considtent with the industry's best practices of

record keeping and information systems management,

* The right to have their applications for benefits or opportunities evaluated on the basis of

relevant and accurate information,

Principle

No*

5- Limiting

Use,

Disclosure and Retention Credit Information

Equifax limits the use, disclosure and retention of your credit information in accordanc

e with

applicable credit reproting and privacy laws. An Equifax customer must have your consent and a

purpose permitted by law to access Equifax consumer credit reports. All Equifax customers are

required to go through the Equifax application screening process and access is not granted to all

applicants. The customers that are accepted by Equifax are carefully screened and contractually

obliged to respect and abide by all applicable credit reporting and privacy laws, Equifax conducts

periodic audits to ensure that Equifax customers are acting in compliance with their contractual

and legal obligations

.

As a Canadian consumer, you have the right to know the full and complete content of

your Equifax consumer credit file. Equifax will disclose your credit information to you free of

charge by mail or telephone, Equifax will respond to any questions or concerns that yo may have

regarding your Equifax consumer credit file* For information about how to obtain your personal

information, please refer to the FAQ section at the end of this policy.

Credit information in your consumer credit file is maintained in accordance with legislated

data retention guidelines.

This is summarized from the Equifax Canada Inc. Privacy Policy - CANADA, 2010. Copyright

©

2010, Equifax Canada Inc. The document was obtained from the Equifax Canada office and

is reprinted here with permissio

n of Equifax Canada, Inc.

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

It has been suggested that European countries and others occupied during World

War II and/or repressed by Communist governments have a strong recollection of the

problems that can accrue if data are made available too freely. Hence, the right to data

privacy is heavily regulated and rigidly enforced in Europe. Article 8 of the European

Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides a right to respect for one's "private and

family life, his home and his correspondence," subject to certain restrictions, and the

European Court of Human Rights has given this article a very broad interpretation in its

jurisprudence.

Member states of the European Union (EU) are also signatories of the European

Convention on Human Rights and the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with

Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data. The European Commission decided

to harmonize data protection regulation and proposed the directive on the protection of

personal data by adopting a number of key principles with which individual country's

legislation must comply. These eight principles, then, have been adopted in one form or

another by all countries in the EU and require data to be:

• Fairly and lawfully processed

• Processed for limited purposes

• Adequate, relevant, and not excessive

• Accurate

• Not kept longer than necessary

• Processed in accordance with the data subject's rights

• Secure

• Not transferred to countries without adequate protection

In operation, the European Community (EC) provides the following fair-use policy

(di Talamo, 1991):

• Data use is prohibited without authorization of the subject.

• Data subjects must be personally notified of to whom information has been passed

and for what purpose.

• Data subject can claim compensation if data are misused and caused damage.

• EC data can only be transferred out of the EC if

the

receiving country can guarantee

the same level of protection.

In these cases, the burden of ensuring that the data are really relevant and accurate

is kept on the organization collecting the data. In fact, in Sweden, organizations wanting

to collect data on individuals must apply to the Data Inspection Board and be granted a

license to do so. In France, organizations are required to destroy data after the specific

application for which they were collected is completed. Further, in Italy, most labor unions

have agreements with organizations that give them the right to approve any data maintained

about individuals in corporate databases.

In early

1995,

The Council of Ministers of the European Community adopted

a

common

position on the European data protection directive. The directive is significant for European

privacy because it will necessitate the adoption of privacy safeguards in the remaining

European countries that do not yet have legislation. In addition, it will require changes

in countries with existing privacy laws because the directive takes a stronger position on

data protection than existing national laws. It is also believed that the directive will result

INFORMATION AVAILABILITY STANDARDS

295

in greater scrutiny of countries without a data protection commission and/or adequate

legislative protections.

So,

how do these laws and customs affect the use of transnational DSS? Many uses of

DSS technology in the United States could be crippled by these regulations.

5

In general,

businesses which depend on the manipulation of computer data lists, such as direct-mail

companies, credit reference agencies, or marketing researchers, would

be

hampered

by

these

EC directives. First, no data about an individual could be processed or transmitted without

that person's informed consent. This means a database could not include a person's name

unless they

specifically authorized it.

Many individuals would not return an authorization

form; still others would reject the corporate's need to keep information about them, fearing

effects of computer tracking.

6

Second, the rules limit "profiling" people who share particular

characteristics. Finally, since the European position results in greater scrutiny of countries

without a data protection commission and/or adequate legislative protections such as the

United States, it may even affect the basic information sharing among companies, or even

among divisions of the same company.

Data Availability

Clearly not all information that is of interest in a DSS is about individuals in society.

Some of the information is about governments, corporations, competitors, statutes and

legal precedents, and so on. In order for the technology to be used to its fullest, there is a

need for the various cultures to share views on how such "public" information should be

shared. In the United States, the culture has taken its right to public information from the

First Amendment. However, not all countries share this right. Even a country as similar in

culture as Canada does not protect this right. This can present a problem if all parties using

a DSS cannot have access to the same information. Further it presents questions as to how

the statutes and customs apply. For example, if a DSS user is physically in country A but

accessing a computer and database in country B, do the laws and precedents of country A

hold or do those of country B hold? In other words, is it the individual's physical location

or logical location which dictates which statutes apply? International courts continue to

debate these issues.

5

Big credit card

companies,

banks,

airlines,

and

insurers

use

massively parallel processing in

an

effort

to divine which consumers are likely to buy what products and when. Marketing managers believe

this is a great contribution to their efforts. However, one business professor warns the fallout could

be that nasty ID companies begin abusing their newfound information: "The companies doing this

have a big responsibility. Otherwise there will be an information Chernobyl."

(Wall Street

Journal,

August

16,

1994,

p.

Bl.) In addition, as these efforts spread

to

international marketing, other cultures

will affect what is defined as responsible behavior.

6

George Orwell's book 1984 summarizes his prediction (which was shared by many others) of the

impact computers and

technology

as a whole would have

upon daily

life.

Many

citizens

were

outraged

at the thought they could be "tracked" as Orwell suggested. Orwell was correct in his prediction of

the ability of computers to track our activities. Of

course,

Orwell was generally wrong in his other

predictions regarding the impact of

computers.

Instead of enforcing uniformity as he had expected,

they promote heterogeneity and autonomy. Many believe that, because computers provide flexibility

and adaptability

to

our

activities,

we have

become

more

human,

not less

so,

when

we use

them (Kelly,

"Embrace It,"

Harper's,

May 1994).

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Data Flow

Even if there is agreement among all cultures affected by a particular transnational DSS

regarding the privacy or protection of data and the availability of data, there can still

be problems. There may be restrictions about where data can reside, where they can be

processed, and how access can be maintained. Some countries, such as Canada, maintain

that allowing data to be processed outside their borders would reduce their control over

disruptions in service, reduce their ability to ensure protection against personal privacy

violations and computer crime, jeopardize their jurisdiction over companies operating in

their borders, undermine the telecommunications system, and emphasize foreign values,

goods, and services. In addition, Canadian officials recognize the potential for both release

of information that is vital to Canada and the loss of independence and autonomy to other

countries

(Telecommunications and Canada,

1979). Similarly, in Britain, it is believed

that only its government can assess the national interest of information and the U.K.'s

vulnerability to disruptions in the availability of that information

(Making a Business of

Information,

1983).

Reports in both Latin America and Africa (Collier, 1988) recommend that:

• Data affecting national sovereignty, cultural identity, and technological progress

should be protected against processing in other countries.

• Data should remain in the country of origin.

• External information should be screened.

The three messages that guide all of these concerns about transborder data flow are the

following.

• It is imperative that the data processing industry of the country is preserved. If

transborder processing of data is allowed, the data processing industry would be

threatened and potentially eliminated. Since much of the hope for long-term eco-

nomic survival for most countries depends on their ability to participate in the

"information technology race" successfully, it is imperative that the data process-

ing industry be maintained and bolstered. For example, the Brazilian government

is concerned that if data are taken

from

Brazil for processing, both the software

and hardware markets will suffer. Hence, they only allow "processed" data to leave

its borders. Furthermore, data flow across borders potentially affects the transfer

of payments. For example, information sales (i.e., "fees and royalties) was about

$5.8 billion in 1980—doubled since 1970.

• National security can be jeopardized if

a

country becomes too dependent upon other

countries for vital data and services. This can provide a bargaining chip for political

hostage behavior.

• Cultural integrity is threatened as we allow greater amounts of the information we

view and the format in which we view it to be from another culture.

While these issues are not threatened by any

individual

use of data in a transnational

DSS,

they can be threatened by significant use in DSS as well as other data processing

jobs.

Since the regulations tend to be written in terms of data flows, not the purpose of

those flows, we as designers of DSS need to be aware of the prevailing laws, customs, and

expectations surrounding transborder data flows and build our systems to accommodate

them efficiently.

CROSS-CULTURAL MODELING

The model management component of a DSS, as defined in an earlier chapter, consists of

analytical

tools,

such

as

statistical models,

financial

models, artificial intelligence heuristics,

and operations research models, as well as a function for managing those tools. Some of

the tools consist of prepackaged analyses, while others provide the users the opportunity

to build their own models. The value of this component results from providing easily

implemented access to a wide variety of tools and assistance in using the tools, so the

users can and will investigate relevant patterns and issues in their data. Hence, the goal is

to enable users to select the models they perceive as most appropriate to assist with the

particular question under consideration. This goal is only achieved, however, if DSS are

designed appropriately for the individuals or groups who will be using them.

Clearly this is not a problem if all questions and all data have a unique modeling

opportunity associated with them. That is, if one believes there is only one way to analyze

data correctly, then the transnational nature of a DSS should not affect the design of

the model management system. However, that assumption is rarely correct. Even if one

simply acknowledges that different divisions will have different perspectives that will

affect their approach to decision making, it becomes obvious that they will need to consider

different data in different ways to address those differences in perspectives. Hence, the

various divisions will require different (and perhaps vastly different) models to support

those decisions. In addition, since management style is at least partially a function of the

state of development and technology, the variations in these factors will increase the

heterogeneity of models required of a successful system.

In addition, there is some evidence that cultural differences exacerbate the problem.

There is an international management literature that addresses "management practices" and

cross-cultural differences, including the use of analytical tools, the use of measurements,

planning, and control (Kobayshi, 1982). For example, some researchers have found that the

use of models is influenced by the culture and its norms of

the

decision maker (Evans et al.,

1989;

Hofstede, 1980). Different traditions and different values alter the variables which

are reasonable to consider, the need to optimize, and the methods by which to evaluate

alternatives. The parameters of the problem to consider in turn will influence the choice of

relevant models.

Some researchers have found that

formalized

approaches to decision making may not

differ as a function of culture [see, e.g., Al-Jafaray and Höflings worth (1983) or Negandhi

(1979)].

However, few would deny that the

formal

mechanisms of decision making, such

as the reports, forms, and other formal communications regarding the choice process, are

quite

different

from the actual process one used to get to the decision, such as the searches

necessary in a

DSS.

Furthermore, few researchers would deny that effective ways of leading

individuals and organizations can differ

as a

function of the environment in which they work.

Consider, for example, Figure 6.4, which illustrates the cultural assumptions of work ethics

in the United States and in Asian countries. These differences affect how people work,

how incentives can be established, and what will guide their management. Clearly, the

process by which one could encourage or convince individuals or groups is also affected

by those assumptions.

7

As such, it is clear that the decision support provided to individuals

or groups in those different cultures will also differ. In fact, Hofstede (1994) notes that any

7

The phrase, "There are truths in one country which are falsehoods in another," has been attributed

to Blaise Pascal circa 1700. Such differences affect criteria and other decision processes.

298

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

. Work is a necessity, but not a goal in

# Work is

9

ood for

P

eo

P

le

-

itself

· · People's capacities should be utilized

• People should find their rightful place, maximally.

in peace and harmony with their · There are "organizational objectives"

environment.

that exist apart from pe0

ple.

• Absolute objectives exist only with .

People in

organizations behave as

God.

In the world, persons in authority unattached individuals.

positions represent God, so their

objectives should be followed.

• People behave as members of a

family and/or group. Those who do not

are rejected by society.

Figure 6.4. Comparison of cultural assumptions.

Source:

Adapted with permission from G. Hofstede, "Management Scientists Are Human,"

Man-

agement

Science,

Research and the Management Sciences, Hanover, MD.

system of leading and coordinating the work of employed persons should be geared to their

"collective mental programs ... that is their culture." These collective mental programs

cannot be identified as superior or inferior to one another. Rather, the culture it is a response

to the environment from which it evolved.

From this perspective, it is not useful to debate whether or not culture will affect

the model management needs, but rather the debate should be on

how

culture will affect the

model management

needs.

To answer

this,

first it is necessary to define what is meant by the

term

culture.

While there is not universal agreement upon how to define a culture, we can

rely upon the cultural anthropological literature to find a variety of measures for defining

and evaluating culture. A culture cannot be defined solely in terms of the nation in which it

exists.

Many national boundaries are historically artificial: some nations contain multiple

distinct cultures, while other nations share a culture with geographically adjacent nations.

Examination of only cross-national differences misses a wide range of characteristics that

distinguish among cultures. Hence, herein, we will attempt to discuss culture in terms of

the

dimensions

which define it, not generalizations about specific countries. While we will

discuss what some of these issues mean in terms of

the

choice process and DSS for specific

countries, in general, we need to look at the individual dimensions to help guide the DSS

CROSS-CULTURAL MODELING

299

development process. Table 6.1 provides a summary of dimensions noted in the cultural

anthropology literature.

Several researchers have identified uncertainty avoidance as a measure of culture.

For example, Hofstede (1983) noted that cultures differ in their patterns of coping with

ambiguity and uncertainty. Cultures that accept uncertainty will take risks easily. As a

result, they are also more able to accept differences in others, such as in their opinions

or behaviors. These cultures accept "relative truths" and evaluate options in terms of the

current environment, not compared to a rigid standard. Cultures in which uncertainty is less

well accepted try to shield individuals from the unknown. Such cultures tend to adopt laws

and procedures which facilitate similarity of thought and behavior. As a result, the cultures

are aggressively intolerant for deviant behaviors and opinions as well as for any action or

individual which threatens their view of the world.

District planning in India operates on a five-year cycle. Each ministry of the central government

and each state governmen

t prepare a plan which is then compiled into the national five-year plan,

Bhatnagar and Jajoo (1987) developed a DSS intended to assist with the development of these

plans.

The focaJ point of the planning

is

a district, which has

a

population of about

1

million. District-

level plans for each sector are passed upward to the state level where they are consolidated for

all districts. Prior to the development of the DSS, the exercis

e of communications between and

among state headquarters and the district to finalize a plan may have taken

seven to eight months.

In addition, two key decisions in these five-year plans are made arbitrarily due to the

unavailabilit

y of the necessary information: (a) a district wise allocation of the total available

budget for the department and (b) selecting a specific location choice for a particular facility.

An earlier version of th DSS was developed. Overall, it was considered a success. Almost

everyone who saw it recognized its potential to serve as an aid to planning within a district.

However, it was recognized that such applications could be develope

d only if computers supporting

graphic facilities were available within the state and district At that time such graphic facilities

were not accessible,

Since today's microcomputers offer reasonable graphic facilities, a second version was

created with vastly improved interaction capabilities. This second system provided more general

data structures and improved command language structure to simplify interaction

. The commands

allowed selection of villages from a table on the basis of their attributes, like the existence of a

particula

r type of facility or the distance from it Other sets of commands display a set of villages

on a map, allow interaction with the displayed map, and produce a printed report on the selected

villages. The software wa.s table driven, offering the flexibility of carrying out various types of

analysis by using the commands in an appropriate sequence.

This DSS was accepted because five key benefits were provided by the system; (a) the

graphics and maps created a level of understanding which went above and beyond the level which

could be achieved without a DSS; (b) the illustrative graphics helped to create integration across

governmental departments; (c) the quality of decisions were enhanced and the time taken to create

the plans was reduced greatly; (d) the integrated data offered an easy tool to determine relative

allocations among departments based on existing facilities rather than on the basis of the national

norm, thereby creating

a

better balance of distribution!

; and (e) it provided an accurat

e assessment

of a district's

ς

'backwardness indicator" which is often used for allocating funds. Overall, it was

determined that the extensiv

e graphical interface was the biggest selling feature for the users.

The district planning DSS example provided insight into the user interface issues when

designing a DSS for India. In particular, it suggested that the graphical images help to cross

cultural and communicatio

n barriers in India to make the system more usable,

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Table 6.1. Possible Dimensions of Culture

Long-term orientation

Attitude about uncertainty

Person-nature relation

Activity index

Human-nature attitudes

Power distance

Individualism

Masculinity index

This attitude toward uncertainty affects decision-making needs. For example, indi-

viduals in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance will be more likely to conduct highly

structured analyses and less ad hoc analyses. Since they will want to be prepared for all

possible contingencies, they will be likely to evaluate greater numbers of alternatives and

more facets of those alternatives. Further, if they have employed optimization, they will

be likely to seek postoptimality analyses prior to selecting an alternative for implemen-

tation.

The

person-nature orientation

is the second dimension of culture. This measures the

individual or group's view of their relative dominance over fate. The dimension varies from,

at the one end, individuals believing they have no effect on the future. These individuals

perceive they must accept the inevitable, and hence there is no planning for contingencies.

In the middle of the dimension are individuals who believe that there is a balance between

people and nature. At the other end of the dimension are those who believe in mastery of

their fates if they have enough ability to overcome obstacles.

This dimension is likely to affect an individual's basic likelihood of accepting technol-

ogy as a decision-making tool. Those who feel in control of their fate encourage the use of

technology as a way of meeting their goals, while those who perceive they have no control

are unlikely to adopt technology readily.

In addition, one's perception of one's ability to dominate fate will affect an attitude

toward planning. Populations in cultures that do not accept one's ability to influence the

future do not participate in long-range planning activities. Evan (1975) associates this with

their belief in "luck" as the major influencing factor. Since luck cannot, in their view of the

world, be planned, they do not practice much long-range or strategic planning. Rather, it is

better to wait and respond as best one can. Hence, these decision makers emphasize reactive

decision making. On the other hand, individuals who believe they can master their fates,

are more likely to conduct strategic and contingency planning. Their goal is to improve

their relative position (either individually or as a group) to influence destiny.

Many of

the

cultures in the middle area of

this

dimension focus on maintaining a "har-

mony" with nature. For example, they believe that the more harmonious a social structure

and/or organizational structure, the more likely they are to attract "luck" for the organiza-

tion. In these cultures, the top executives are likely to attempt to create harmony through

meetings, gatherings, and so on. This implies, in turn, that more of their responsibilities

are delegated to lower levels in the organization. Hence, broader informational needs and

greater authority are likely to be of less importance to those organizations.

Evan (1975) and Negandhi (1983) hypothesize that this orientation affects the formality

within an organization, the direction of communication, and the output of the organiza-

tion. In particular, they note that cultures with strong mastery-of-destiny attitudes tend

to have quite formal methods of socialization, multidirectional communication, and high

CROSS-CULTURAL MODELING

levels of output. With these factors come well-established and structured conventions for

decision-making procedures, criteria, and models. In addition, these cultures will require

decision-making analyses and review of analyses at various levels in an organization.

Societies with a lower confidence of their ability to master fate would be more likely

to have informal methods of socialization, unidirectional communication, and low levels

of output. Hence, they tend to have strong control over the types of information available

at each level of the organization and the kinds of analyses that might be constructed.

The third dimension, the

power distance,

is a related concept. Like uncertainty avoid-

ance,

power distance refers to the manner in which people are organized. Power distance

refers to those aspects of how differences or questions are resolved. In particular, it refers

to the question of who is empowered to make those decisions. In a high-power-distance

culture, few people are empowered to decide differences of opinion or to make decisions on

the best path to follow when experiencing uncertainty. These few are the "bosses," whose

choice is adopted and not questioned. On the other hand, in a low-power-distance culture,

individuals are empowered to make decisions under uncertainty and to work things out

for themselves. This aspect of decision making is operationalized in terms of the level of

centralization of decision making in a department or organization as well as in terms of the

freedom with which information flows in an organization.

The fourth dimension,

activity orientation,

represents the manner in which people eval-

uate activity and accomplishments. In particular, it

is a

description of the mode of expression

and hence the mechanism by which activity should be evaluated (see, e.g., Kluckhohn and

Strodtbeck, 1961). At one end of the spectrum is a culture that adopts a spontaneous activity

and expression of attitudes. They do not accept planning or development of activities and

hence believe it is inappropriate to evaluate activities against some planned agenda. Instead,

they evaluate the worth of an alternative by what it

"is,"

not what it can

do.

At the other end

of the spectrum is a culture which emphasizes "getting the job done." These individuals

prefer activities with measurable outcomes that can be judged against objective standards.

This orientation significantly affects one's goal orientation and one's willingness to

adopt standards. Clearly those cultures which regard getting a task completed are more

likely to adopt standards for evaluation and therefore submit alternatives to a more uniform

evaluation. Associated with this is a stronger tendency to depend upon optimization tech-

niques of

analysis.

Cultures which emphasize the other end of the spectrum are more likely

to rely upon descriptive measures of analysis to provide evidence of the relative worth of

the alternative. These individuals are more likely to be interested in current, static measures

of worth, while individuals requiring standardized evaluations are more likely to prefer

historical data rating the development of the alternative.

Evans, Hau, and Sculli (1989) believe this orientation is associated with a culture's

relative levels of aggressiveness in management and decision making. At one end, the

decision makers are seen as more aggressive. Since they adopt standards for evaluation and

want to select the "best" alternative, they tend to adopt efficiency as an important criterion.

Decision makers at the other end are more passive and defensive. They tend to adopt "social

harmony"—and the absence of public disagreement—as an important factor to consider

in decision making. Therefore, they are likely to allow greater flexibility in the alternative

generation and evaluation, especially at the early stages of decision making.

The fifth dimension is the

human-nature

orientation, as proposed by Kluckhohn and

Strodtbeck (1961). This dimension measures the likelihood of finding innate "goodness" in

human nature and hence identifies what motivates people in their actions. If one adopts an

attitude that people are intrinsically bad, then one needs to adopt planning and management

mechanisms that constantly control and discipline workers and departments in order to

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

obtain good results from the organization. Decision makers need to be able to observe

people and projects carefully and frequently so as to detect problems as soon as possible.

The more strongly held the philosophy, the tighter such monitoring would be.

On the other hand, if one adopts a view of society that is basically good, then the goal

of monitoring systems changes dramatically. Instead of designing such systems to identify

problems, monitoring systems are created to detect opportunities for development, growth,

and/or strategic advantage.

Evans, Hau, and Sculli (1989) claim that the human-nature orientation also influences

the flexibility exhibited toward managerial communication. The more a culture adopts an

"evil" view of society, the less likely superiors would want alternative opinions, especially

from subordinates. Cultures that adopt a "good" view of society are more likely to tolerate

conflict situations associated with debates of

the

relative merits of alternatives and methods

for evaluating alternatives. In this latter case, through more levels of the organization deci-

sion makers need support from greater use of analytical tools, more alternative generation

capabilities, and greater information retrieval.

The sixth dimension is

individualism.

At one end of the spectrum are cultures that

emphasize the continuity of the group and hence the group goals are paramount in the

decision-making efforts. These groups are generally homogenous in some fashion and want

to stay that way. On the other hand, at the other end of the spectrum are cultures in which

the value of autonomy of the members of the group is seen as the only important criterion

for decision making. Obviously, there are many points between these two on the spectrum.

Cultures that hold the individualistic view emphasize achieving the goals of the indi-

vidual above all others. These people may accept and pursue group goals, but only if they

do not conflict with their own. Collateral societies, on the other hand, emphasize the goals

and welfare of the extended group, such as an organization. Those cultures at the extreme

point of this dimension stress the importance of continuity of the group through time and

ordered progression of individuals within the group.

Clearly, then, the level of individualism associated with a culture will affect the goals

adopted and pursued in decision making as well as decision makers' general compliance

with authority in considering alternatives. Evan (1975) and Negandhi (1983) postulate that

this orientation will affect the formalization of the socialization function and the direction

of communication within an organization. They suggest that cultures that emphasize the

individualistic component will have formal means of socialization within the organization

and strong multidirectional communication among decision makers. Cultures that empha-

size the group component, on the other hand, will have informal means of socialization

within the organization and unidirectional communication. As stated previously, this will

in turn affect the types of analyses and standards of alternatives considered, the need for

controls on information within the organization, and the need for sharing analyses among

levels within the organization.

The last dimension is the masculinity index of

a

culture.

This dimension reflects the as-

sociation of specific attributes such as assertiveness, performance, competition, and success

with the role of men in society. In addition, it reflects the association of more commonly ac-

cepted feminine attributes, such as quality of

life,

strong personal relationships, and care for

the weak, with the role of men in society. In total, the dimension relates to how much differ-

ence exists in the culture between "men's roles in societies" and "women's roles in society,"

or, said differently, how much gender equality exists in a culture. This in turn results in the

culture's calibration of the worth of "masculine" values and "feminine" values in society.

Consider Table 6.2, in which Hofstede summarizes his measurement of several coun-

tries with regard to each of these dimensions. It is difficult to discuss such differences

without resulting to stereotypes. What is most important to note at this point is that there

EFFECTS OF CULTURE ON DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM

303

Table 6.2. Cultural Scores for 12 Countries

Country

Arab countries

France

Germany

Great Britain

Netherlands

Hong Kong

Indonesia

Japan

Brazil

Mexico

United States

West Africa

Power

Distance

80

68

35

38

68

78

54

69

81

40

77

Uncertainty

Avoidance

68

86

65

35

53

29

48

92

76

82

46

54

Individualism

38

71

67

89

80

25

14

46

38

30

91

20

Masculinity

Index

53

43

66

14

57

46

95

49

69

65

46

Long-Term

Orientation

31

25

44

96

80

65

29

16

Source:

Adapted from

G.

Hofstede, "Management Scientists are

Human,"

Management Science

40(1),

January,

1994,

pp. 4-13. Reprinted with permission from The Institute for Operations Research and the Management

Sciences

Hanover,

MD,

and the

author.

are definite differences in culture that can be paired with differences in how people adopting

those cultures will feel comfortable making decisions. Where there are differences in how

people make decisions, there must be differences in the kind of support provided by DSS for

those people. Hence, there must be transnational factors considered in the design of DSS.

EFFECTS OF CULTURE ON DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM

Based on the anthropological definitions of cultures described in the previous section, one

would expect observable differences in the preferences for design of DSS across cultures.

There are five general aspects of the system on which one would expect differences, as

listed in Table 6.3. Table 6.4 summarizes the discussion of the previous section, thereby

illustrating the effects of the various cultural factors on DSS design.

Table 6.3. Cultural Differences and Their Effects on DSS Design

Choice of

model

Descriptive

vs.

optimization

Need for strategic planning

Use of standards

Variables used

Need for monitoring

Variety needs for models

Premodeling need: alternative generation

Postmodeling

need:

sensitivity analyses

Temporal aspects

Orientation of data

Static

vs.

dynamic

Desired access

Scope of access

Individual

vs.

joint use

Table 6.4. Cultural Differences and Their Effects on DSS Design

Cultural Indicators

DSS

Characteristics

Time Orientation Uncertainty Person-Nature Attitude Activity

Past Present Future avoid tolerant subjective harmony master being becoming doing

Human-Nature Belief

evil mix good

lin'l

Relational

coll individual

Choice of Models

Descriptive v.

Optimizing

Need for Strategic

Pinging

Use of Standards

Variables used

Need for

Monitoring

Variety needs for

models

Pre-modeling

Needs

Alternative

Generation

Post-Modeling

Needs

Sensitivity

Analyses

Temporal Aspects

Orientation of

Data

Static v. Dynamic

Desired Access

Scope of Access

Individual v. Joint

high

high high

historical current future

some high

high

less high

high high

high

high no

"is"

high

low

descriptive optim

high

descriptive descriptive descriptive

high

high high

"done"

moderate high

efficiency

high

more soc group self

high

high high

current historical future current historical all historical historical future

static dynamic dynamic static dynamic dynamic

limit broader low

individual high individual

high

joint

low

individual

high

joint

low

individual

high

joint

a

more structured, less ad hoc.

b

Some monitoring: emphasize monitoring for reactive purposes.

EFFECTS OF CULTURE ON DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM

First, there are differences in preferences for descriptive models versus optimization

models associated with the activity orientation and uncertainty avoidance of the culture.

Related to this is the differential need for contingency and planning models depending

upon the person-nature orientation, the uncertainty avoidance, and the activity orienta-

tion. For example, cultures which believe they can master their destiny are more likely to

emphasize strategic and contingency planning than are other cultures. Furthermore, these

attributes affect the decision to adopt standards; the more the culture adopts a "doing"

value, the more likely it is to adopt standards for evaluation of actions. Finally, these

dimensions affect the flexibility of the decision makers to select from a menu of appro-

priate analyses to support their choice process. The need for flexibility is associated with

cultures that perceive mastery of their destinies, with low uncertainty avoidance tenden-

cies,

a positive human-nature orientation, and a highly individualistic orientation of the

culture.

From Table 6.4, it is clear that the literature regarding the impact of culture on decision

making suggests that culture will affect the kinds of models required, the premodeling and

postmodeling support, the temporal aspects of the model, and the level of access desired.

Hence, if one is building a transnational DSS, one must pay special attention to differences

in needs

and

preferences among decision makers in these areas. Such special attention

might mean providing more flexibility than one would otherwise provide. Or the special

attention might mean providing greater training in the use, more online support, or greater

emphasis of the capabilities in those areas.

Of course, being able to determine which of these attributes is important hinges on

the ability to identify where the culture of interest falls on each of the dimensions. Some

authors have already provided some of this information, such as the ratings represented

in Table 6.2 (see, e.g., Hofstede, 1994). These ratings help provide clues to how various

cultures fall on the various dimensions and hence can provide guidance on how to balance

the needs of multiple cultures.

As long as the DSS is isolated to a given culture, these differences in the preferences

in decision-making behavior are of little consequence. However, if the DSS is designed

to support decision makers who represent two or more of these cultures, then it must be

sufficiently flexible to accommodate the wide range of needs. Knowing these decision-

making preferences, the designer must balance those preferences in the DSS capabilities.

For

example,

suppose the DSS is designed to support both

a

culture that values identification

of the best alternative (optimization models) as well as one that values the identification of

a

wide range of information about the phenomenon, so as to make a good but not necessarily

the best decision (descriptive models). Clearly the best answer is to develop a DSS which

can accommodate both types of modeling. This may mean more than simply providing both

kinds of models to the decision makers. It may also mean providing automated intelligent

assistance, which helps the decision makers use models better and which helps them

understand the reasoning behind the use of the model better.

Consider the examples of such intelligent assistance shown in Figures 6.5 and 6.6. In

Figure 6.5, the system examines the solution elected by the decision maker and helps to

identify problems with it. In this example, the production policy is evaluated to determine

if it will meet the needs of their customers. The system determines that the user has not

elected to examine forecasts of availability of raw materials. In addition, the system scans

available databases to determine if any of the raw materials have had significant shortages

in the recent past. When one is found, the system brings this information to the attention of

the user, thus prompting the user to modify the prepared analysis.

306

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Figure 6.5. Intelligent assistance.

Figure 6.6. Intelligent assistance encouraging further models.

EFFECTS

OF

CULTURE

ON

DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM

307

Figure 6.7. Modeling assistance.

In Figure 6.6, the system examines the process used by the decision maker. By noting

the tasks completed

by the

decision maker,

the

system

can

determine that

the

user

is

electing

to

attempt

to

create

a

production plan manually. Since

the

system "knows" that

such problems can

be

solved using operations research techniques,

the

system interrupts

the user to suggest this alternative modeling structure. Note that the system does not force

the user

to

abandon

the

current task. Rather,

the

system notes that

it is an

alternative

and attempts

to

explain why. Further note that the system reassures the user that the final

decision

is in

the hands

of

the user since

it

can be altered to include the "nonquantifiable"

issues not handled well by optimization. In this way, the system reassures the user that there

is a place for his or her analysis.

If

the

user asked for more information, it might be useful to help him or her understand

where

the

suggested approaches were superior

and

why. First, consider,

for

example,

Figure 6.7.

In

this screen,

the

system

is

comparing

the

plans developed

by the

decision

maker's personal approach and those developed by the alternative modeling approach. This

provides the user with the evidence

he or

she needs

to

believe that the model might work

as well as

to

determine what flaws exist

in

his

or

her analyses.

In

addition, such objective

analyses help the user understand why years

of

experience might not be substitutable

for

an appropriate model.

Second, consider the situation where the cultural differences among users

of

the DSS

suggest

a

need

for

broader access

to

data and models. For example, where organizational

goals differ,

the

need

for

information will differ. Consider

two

cultures,

one in

which

organizational goals such

as

efficiency, productivity, and profit

are

optimized and

the

other

in

which organizational goals such as organizational stability, growth, industry leadership, and

organizational efficiency are optimized. This difference in goals suggests a difference in the

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

focus of statistical data. The manager from the first culture will need information regarding

issues such as profit, margin on sales, return on total assets, and the time to produce a single

item. That is, this manager needs statistics which suggest how profitable the company is in

its current state and how profitable it would be if a change were implemented. The focus of

this manager is on the size of the profit differential resulting from the change. The manager

of

the

second culture would also be concerned with the difference in productivity but would

focus on the impact of the change on the stability of the company. This manager would

consider statistics such as industry ranking and market value, especially with regard to

how the change will affect each of those statistics. Hence, both sets of statistics should be

available to the decision makers. In addition, screens such as those previously noted that

help the user to understand why someone might look at the other statistics could be useful.

An example is shown in Figure 6.8.

The options for a DSS designer are somewhat more complicated when the preferences

are in conflict with one another. For example, consider the situation where one culture

adopts standards for performance whereas the other culture does not adopt standards and

is more likely to focus on the importance of being (rather than an outcome measure).

These two cultures conflict in terms of both where to focus (the activity or the outcome)

and whether or not to provide standards in the evaluation. One approach to addressing

the standards problem is to provide a module that will facilitate the understanding and

development of standards. Such a module could help users see a relationship between the

rankings on relevant criteria and alternatives generally accepted as good so as to facilitate

Figure 6.8. Transnational support.

EFFECTS OF CULTURE ON DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM

the development of standards in the long

run.

Similarly, the module could help users identify

noncompensatory relationships among standards. That is, by examining the standards, the

average standard, and actual outcomes, decision makers are more likely to become aware of

situations where acceptable levels on a given standard are as important (or more important)

that meeting an overall standard of performance.

This method of providing historical data of outcomes and data allows the decision

makers to generally perceive opportunities for improved decision making. If it is important

that changes in the process happen quickly; the system can be programmed to encourage

decision makers to consider these relationships by providing pop-up screens noting incon-

sistencies in decision-making procedures or the value of alternative information in selecting

among alternatives.

The culture will also affect the premodel functions and the postmodel functions in

the model management system. The time orientation of the culture, uncertainty avoidance

tendency, and human-nature orientation affect the desirability of methods for generating

alternatives to known problems or conditions. Those cultures that are future oriented, have

high uncertainty avoidance, and/or have a "good" human-nature orientation are likely to

want systems that facilitate alternative generation.

Similarly, the uncertainty avoidance tendencies and the person-nature orientation of

the culture are expected to affect the needs for postmodeling support, such as

"what-if"

analyses or postoptimality analyses. In particular, high uncertainty avoidance tendencies

and cultures which perceive they can master their destinies will value such ad hoc queries

to determine the sensitivity of their solutions to potential changes in their environments.

In this situation, prompting the user to consider more pre- and postmodeling function-

ality is probably best. For example, if the value of a given decision is dependent upon the

availability of a scarce resource, the system might automatically notify the user. In this

case,

the system could post a message such as that identified in Figure 6.5.

Cultural norms will also affect the temporal orientation of the data that decision

makers will expect to find in a DSS. The time orientation of the culture and the activity

orientation affect the preference for current or historical data in an analysis. Cultures that

emphasize the past and/or the being nature will emphasize historical data in the system.

In addition, the human-nature orientation, activity orientation, and time orientation will

affect the desirability of monitoring systems as part of a DSS and the kind of information

that should be maintained in such monitoring systems. Furthermore, the activity orientation

and the time orientation affect the preference for static measures of merit of an alternative

over dynamic measures of historical change. For example, societies that emphasize the

value of individuals and their development will require monitoring systems that trace the

growth of people, projects, or organizations over time to support their decision making.

This is in contrast to societies that emphasize the individual, which would need only current

performance information.

Another area in the design of

DSS

affected by culture is the scope of

the

DSS to which

members of the organization have access. In some cases, access to either information,

models, or results is expanded (limited) because of the need for more (less) people involved

in the decision-making process. For example, in cultures that emphasize harmony with

nature, lower levels of management need information because upper management's focus

is on maintaining harmony. Similarly, in cultures that believe in "good" human-nature

orientation, information is available to greater numbers of people so as to generate more

innovative solutions to problems. At other times, this access changes to limit the generation

of alternatives, the questioning of assumptions, or the direction of communication. The

scope of the system seems to be affected by the person-nature orientation, the level of

individuality, and the human-nature orientation of the culture.

INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

DISCUSSION

It is important to focus on the differences in culture which could affect decision makers'

needs because such features could affect the perceived usefulness of a system substantially.

As more companies become transnational

and

as more decision making in those transna-

tional corporations is decentralized, DSS design which allows flexibility in the approach

to decision making and which helps decision makers become more comfortable with the

styles associated with other cultures will become critical. If decision makers cannot use

the system to be responsive to their own needs and to communicate their analyses to their

colleagues, the system will not be used. In the long run, if decision makers do not use the

system, then even the best designed system is a failure.

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